Pastor Stephen Tilmon | The Way

“But now.” Two words in Romans 3 that feel like a door cracking open in a locked room. We start where Paul starts: every one of us comes up guilty, religious or not, churchgoer or not, polished or messy. Then the turn hits and we lean into the hope. God doesn’t ask us to manufacture our way to Him. He reveals the way, and the way has a name: Jesus.

We talk through Romans 3:21–24 with plain language and real-life grit. Why the law can expose what’s broken but can’t heal it. Why “being a good person” still falls short of God’s standard. Why church habits and religious rituals can’t replace saving faith in Jesus Christ. We also draw a hard line between religion and the gospel: religion says what you must do to get to God, the gospel says what God has done for you.

From there, we go personal and practical. If grace is real, it reshapes how we treat people we don’t like, people who hurt us, and people who make life awkward. We name the temptation to compare sins, to get proud, to avoid the very ones God might be sending us to love. And we don’t dodge the big claim either: Jesus isn’t a way. He is the way to forgiveness, freedom, and salvation.

If this message helped you, subscribe, share it with someone who needs hope, and leave a review so more people can find it. What’s one place you’ve been trying to earn what God only gives by grace?

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Transcript

Church Updates And Family Humor

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They are doing their part to grow the church. Yes, we are as well. Amen. We have another one. I don't think she's here today, but she's also having a boy, so we got three boys. Three pastors. Hey! If we raise him up in the world, you don't know what's gonna come out of this church. When the church has the foundation of Jesus Christ, we're supposed to raise him up and send him out. I'm in it for the long haul. So I know last Sunday we we kind of established, we kind of we did establish Bill and Lori as associate pastors, continue to pray for them. They had their first class going through camps, which is the first stage of getting credentialed in the church of God, uh, to be a minute licensed minister and uh Lori, pray for her, not just because of Bill, but but pray for her because she said, You know what? I think I want to do it too. Now, if you if you know anything about the credentialing in the church of God, the spouses are always there with you. My wife had to go through the classes and do all the things throughout, but then the person who's getting credentialed, whether the man or the woman, they take the test, and she said, I think I'll do it. Not that it's a competition or anything of who does better. So just pray that Bill's ego can be set aside when Lori when Lori outscores him on every test. He admitted, he admitted, he said she is much smarter than me. That's fine. All she needed was one moment of stupidity. Well, she said I do, and she can be smart the rest of my life, amen. Come on. Any of y'all who married up, you know exactly what I'm doing. We serve a god of miracles. That's how I know God is so real, because I married up. Come on, somebody. He gave me what I didn't deserve. Woo! Come on, somebody. I said this before. Some people, and this this hurts my heart, breaks my heart. Some people describe their spouse as a ball and shape. I know some of you are like, well, it depends on what day. But to me, I said this before, and this is how I describe our marriage and our relationship and how we complement each other. We are not the same person, thank God. I would hate living with me. But I'm all over the place and I'm I'm flying. Well, she's way down here. She is my anchor, she keeps me grounded, and I am the wind in her wings to get her flying a little bit. I push her to do things she don't want to do, and she tells me, Stephen, you can't do everything. Praise the Lord for God working out things that we didn't realize we needed in advance.

Romans Series Setup And Prayer

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Now, speaking of God working it out, today we're gonna be. I tried my hardest. I I spoke last week and I said this was gonna be a two-part on chapter three, and I tried my hardest, but I only got to like four, three or four verses. There was like 20 pages, and I'm like, okay, let's just put this off to next Sunday. So last week, what did we talk about? Oh man, y'all are bad. We talked about God being faithful. Okay, we talked about how sinful we are. That's probably why y'all didn't remember it. That no matter Jew or Gentile, churchgoer or person that's never knocked on the doors of a church, every person needs a Savior. That is the first part of this chapter, chapter three of the book of Romans. And the second part, it talks about the forgiveness of sin. So today we're gonna talk about the way, we're gonna talk about Jesus, and then next Sunday we're gonna talk about the cost. What did it cost him? What does the blood do when applied? So look at Romans chapter 3. We're gonna be 21, 22, 23, and 24 of the are the verses. But that's all I could get in today. So go to verse 22, and it says this we are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ, and this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. Let's pray, Father. Thank you so much for this service so far. Thank you, God, for your word, for caring enough for us today that you sent your son back in, that you could make a way for us. And you didn't make a way for just specific people, but you said if anybody calls on my name, they will be saved. And Father, we just want to say thank you for that today. And that Lord, if anybody under the sound of my voice today or watching online does not know you, that Lord, I pray today be the day of salvation in their heart. In your name we pray. Amen. Amen. You may be saved. Howard disappeared. Where'd you go? Just when you can, it's it's turning red. We don't want it to go out in the middle. Y'all don't know this behind the scenes. Our life at Connect Church runs off of batteries. So if you ever see somebody run up on stage real quick, like actually, we prayed before we started, and Howard was so slick by the time I said amen, his microphone had already been changed, and we just went on about business. So we're gonna talk today about this is week number eight in the book of Romans. And today's title is gonna be called The Way. Jesus is the way, he is the truth, and he is the life. Now, if you were here with us last week, you know that the first half was heavy. Paul laid out. So before, or when we go through good job, Howard, thank you, sir. Before uh when we do the offering and the announcements, and they say, Text this number, we're not doing it to sell it, although for the right price. We're not, we want you, we want to be in contact with you. And so the week before the Sunday coming, I always send out a text message with uh I've started doing it with the flyer in the title slide that tells you what's coming up, and we also give you the points, and we also give you the the uh the the scriptures so that you kind of can have notes. If you're not a note taker, I want to make it so available to you you have no excuse when you meet your savior face to face. So

Guilty Verdict Then But Now

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look over. We're gonna start with with verse 21. So at the beginning, Paul laid out a case against all of humanity. Now, he puts Jews and Gentiles alike on trial, which means everybody is on the same level. There's no amount of times you can come to a church, even though I love that you're here. I don't know what y'all are doing over here to scare people, but we got heavy over here. Hallelujah. This used to be the light side, then it was a heavy side, but y'all need to advise some people, is all I'm saying. But the verdict comes back every time for every person guilty. There is nothing you can do. I may offend some people online, I don't think anybody in here is Catholic, but there's not enough of these you can do to make you saved. There's no amounts of certain scriptures that you can read, Hail Marys that you can say, because our salvation is not in action, our salvation is not in Mary, our salvation alone is in Christ. Our salvation alone is in Christ. Now, if if if we finished this first part, if we stopped at verse 20, we would all be in trouble. If that's where it ended, we would all be in danger, and there'd be no point of coming in here except for feeling good before a week starts. But thank God that there is a continuation, there is um, there is hope, there is an escape, there is a way out, and Paul doesn't stop. Let's look at 21. It starts with two of the most powerful words in all of scripture, in my personal opinion, where he says, but now that means that the the the talk before, the paragraphs before, the text before, it says one thing, and it says, Listen, you're all guilty, but now I'm thankful for the but now's in my life where I was once lost, where I was once a sinner, was when I once was a heathen, when I once had addiction of porn, where I once did all the things I should not do and had issue with, but then God said, Hold on, let me step in here and put a period, and then but now, but now turn to Jesus, but now leave it all behind you. But now step into my way and my will, and everything that follows is hope. Some of us can't answer, we think the the hope that is within this is this is how we learn what the hope is and we get context about Jesus, but the hope doesn't come to non-believers from scripture. Hope is supposed to be answered from within us. So if we're not able to answer or give hope to those that don't know Christ, it's because we haven't had a but now experience. We haven't had a but now in our lives where the old man died, but now I am resurrected because Christ was resurrected. The power that raised him is the power that's going to resurrect me. But now, everybody say, but now those two words changed the entire chapter. But now means that what was no longer is, but now means that God has interrupted human history with a permanent solution. But now means that there is a way. The way to God, the way to heaven, the way to freedom, the way to salvation. So let's look at point number

Gospel Revealed Not Earned

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one. The way is revealed. Now you can see up on the screen we have 21 and 22, and there's an A, and then on the next one, there's going to be a B. That's because in my Bible, in the middle of verse 22, it puts a period and then it starts and it says something else. So that's that's what that means if you're wondering. So let's read 21, 22. But now God has shown us a way to be to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ, and this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who you are. Now let's slow down and let's look at this phrase by phrase. So, but now we already went through that, praise the Lord. God has shown us a way. Underline in your Bible, or if you got an app, highlight this where it says shown. If you could do a singular word in your Bible, the Greek word here is paraphernalite, nerote. Hey. And it means to make visible, it means to reveal, it means to uncover something that was previously hidden. Now, this is important because it tells us that the way to God is not something we figure out on our own accord. This is very important because people will spend their life, their entire lives, doing things thinking that it is revealing God, but actually the word says God reveals Himself to us. There's not a magical combination of lifestyle or church attendance or even tithe giving or giving to strangers or giving those that are on the streets or whatever. There's no amount of things you can do to earn your salvation. From the word of God, He shows us, He has shown, He has revealed something that was hidden that you yourself cannot uncover, but it takes God uncovering it for you. It takes the Spirit to uncover it for you. God is not something, holiness is not something, righteousness is not something that we figure out on our own. It's not a planned out design where we do certain things and now we're good enough to get into heaven. Through the new covenant in Christ, now the veil has been torn. The old law is still good, but it is not the the the um the sacrifices they would do in the temple that no longer applies because he was the one sacrifice for eternity. And so it's not human invention that will uncover who God is, it's not the result of religious effort or philosophical discovery. You can't get so smart that you eventually you find a place of enlightenment and now you find God. Another word for enlightenment, in my personal opinion, with all the crystals and and voodoo junk, is called demonic. The devil is good at pating up things that look like God and selling it as a synthetic. God revealed himself to humanity, not us controlling what he does and when he reveals. We have to understand it's very easy, especially if you live a life of selfishness, and then you come to Christ and you merge old habits and old ways of thinking, and you try to make it into the new life of Christ. And what you've done is you just take sinful nature and nasty flesh and try to paint Christ over it so that you look appealing to those who are truly living righteous. It is deceitful, it is the greatest trick of the devil. I think I don't think the biggest trick of the devil, but it exists, you know, witchcraft and stuff like that. I don't think the biggest trick of the devil is to make us fall into witchcraft, but it's to make you think that you have attained something by making God be revealed to you on your own accord. And this tries to take the power and the authority on our own and replace God's authority that should be over our lives. Do you see how it's very so close to the truth, it's so close to reality that it even to someone who is smart and intelligent can feel that it is true. So I want you to understand this. Religion says, here's what you must do to get God. This is that religious behavior. Jesus called out several times. Who did Jesus call out the most? Church people. Because they always thought if they acted a certain way, did a certain thing, prayed a certain prayer, quoted certain scripture. You mean you telling me that that's not what gets you in heaven? Doing good deeds my entire life? You can be the greatest person that ever lives and full of philanthropy and donating and just you could be a doctor that saves lives all the time, and you just, man, you're you're good, or or whatever the case may be. Fill in the blank with whatever you want, and it still doesn't measure up. Because we do not earn heaven, we do not earn Christ, Christ is freely given so that no man can boast. Religion says, here's what you must do to get to God. The gospel says, Here what here is what God has done for you. Do you see the flip? And now listen to me. There are things that should change in your life when you give your life to Christ. There's ways you think, which is I told somebody earlier today. Don't beat yourself up so hard when you have a hard time not getting upset like you used to, not saying the words that you used to say. Because you have spent a lifelong time building these habits in your life, and it's going to take some true breakthrough and breaking down, down to the foundation. Don't leave the studs. You know what studs are? Old skeletons. You put some nice new drywall and paint on old nasty studs that should have been taken out, you will have issues. Your house will stink because you kept the skeletons. The gospel is God's revelation to man. Religion is man's search for God. You understand? The gospel is the revelation of God, of Christ, of the Holy Spirit. Religion is the search for God. Because if we think we can obtain that we have done this since the beginning of time. If we we think we can obtain a certain thing and do a certain thing, if we do it just right, God will be good. But those are not the people that God called righteous. Matter of fact, read your word from cover to cover. And most of the people that couldn't get it right or did it wrong a lot were the people God spoke to. I I heard uh somebody say this and it broke my heart. And so I want to make sure. So you can tell people from the pastor, you can tell people outside of this church. Anyone know somebody that they they don't come to church yet or won't come to church because they think they have to get some things right first? That is a lie from the devil. A church who is healthy and believes what the word says will open their arms to anybody. It makes me sad and breaks my heart that the church has built that reputation in the community. So you can tell them straight from the pastor's lips that's okay, bring your issues. I got some too. Let's go. Why? Because church people have been acting so good and religious. We we look good and pretty on the outside. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still gonna oink. You can stack up manure inside of a barn and paint that barn so pretty, but it's still gonna stink. It will linger. So, how do you get a bad smell out? You open some doors, let it breathe a little bit. Show people that you have some scars, you maybe still have wounds. That you're not in a church because you're perfect, you're you're at a church because that's where the believers should be to gain strength, because there is strength in numbers. It's those outside the walls that think they have to figure it out, or even much so, it's church people that think they don't need church anymore. They are the most vulnerable people out there. That was free, that wasn't even in here.

Law As Mirror And Love

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Verse 21 is continued. It says, a way to be made right with uh with him without keeping the requirements of the law. Now pay attention to this. This phrase would have been shocking to the first century church because they are still a law-abiding Pharisees, Sadducees, the people from the church house that do it all right, that still do sacrifices, that are of Jewish descent. You ever try to tell somebody how they were raised and it's instilled in them that that might be the wrong, like you need to let go of that because that's that's not God. And and it's difficult to let things go that you should leave behind, but is ingrained and entwined in you because now you're an adult. And I don't know if you know this or not, probably some of you do. The older you get, the harder it is to unlearn some of them things. It's tough, but possible. I'm not gonna leave you hanging. It's tough, but it is possible. Now, this phrase would have been shocking to them. For generations, Israel believed that righteousness came through the law. If you kept the commandments, if you followed the rules, if you observed the rituals, you were right with God. That was how the culture was. But Paul says, no, there's a Righteousness that exists apart from the law. This doesn't mean the law was bad, the law was holy and good because it came from God. The law came from God. But the law was never designed to save anyone. Think of it this way: the law, and we talked about this last week, how the word is a mirror to who we are, to who we should be. It not only shows us how undone we are, but it shows us the potential of if we just gave our life to God, what we could have access to. And so, in the same way, if you think of the law as an x-ray machine, when you go to the doctor with a broken bone, they take an x-ray. The x-ray shows you the break, it shows you the fracture, but it cannot heal the break. The word of God can show you how broken you are. The word of God can reveal how undone you are. But it is until you receive Christ and your heart postures before the Lord and says, For me and my house, for me and my temple, we are going to serve the Lord. I give everything I am to God. And in that moment, the break, the brokenness, the bondage can be healed. Reading the word will not save you. I know that's like this is a church, and you're telling me this. The devil knows scripture too. Oh. Put you right next to him. The devil knows. I'm not saying that it's about it's a good, healthy thing to read your word. That's why we have the five, five, and five, five minutes of prayer, five minutes of reading, five minutes of praising. It gets us in sync with God, not asking God to come be in sync with us. Very important. But it's getting us aligned with his will that whatever he says, whatever he reveals to us while we are out and about in the marketplace of those that are lost, your jobs, your schools, even in your homes. Maybe you're here today and you have an unsaved loved one at the house. I don't know. But you in your marketplace, at your house, you're gonna have to know what the word says and how to love somebody when they are not very lovable. You need that. You need to understand that. You need to understand how Christ can look down from a cross to those who just crucified him and he still asks God to forgive them for they don't know what they're doing. That is walking in forgiveness. And I guarantee you, right here, at least probably 50%, if you've been done wrong and you have had to walk in that pain, you're probably not there where you can forgive them and look at them. When their name is mentioned, you want to throat punch them. And some of you right now, listen to me, I know this is your church, but some of you right now, if they walked in here and they done you wrong, what would your knee-jerk reaction be? I'm gonna tell you right now. I have a great relationship with my ex-wife, but I don't want to go to her church. I think that's fair. I think that's very fair. So I don't know what I would do if all of a sudden her and her husband and kid came here to my church. It would be weird. Come on, it would be awkward. It would. Some of y'all are living that out right now in real time. That's why y'all laughing so hard. Some of y'all just a few seats away, some of y'all on the other side. That's all right. When life gets uncomfortable, and we're in a place where we are spiritually mature, we can do things we don't normally and don't like to do. We may not enjoy it sometimes, because there's a reason that I ain't with her anymore. Come on, somebody. Oh, can we get real in the house of the Lord today? You know what I'm saying? We're still people, and once we break down those walls and petitions of like, I'm better than you because I did this, well, I'm better than you because I didn't do that, all this other nonsense, we're just snapping in the air and waving our little heads around, we got attitude and we're all better than everybody. That's a bunch of junk. It's pride, it's spiritual delusion. Man, I ain't even preaching from my notes this morning. Somebody must have needed this. Listen, what I'm trying to say to you is this if God is so faithful and so loving that he sent his one and only son to be the way for all of us who have done stupid things that some of us wouldn't even want to utter out of our mouths, we wouldn't want our spouses to know. You definitely wouldn't want your pastor to know because he may put it in a sermon. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I wouldn't do that. I'm just kidding. But when we come from a place of love, what does the Bible say about love? It covers a multitude of sin. Because as we read earlier in Romans, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So what does that mean? When Christian believers start acting like we understand the word and we start believing what the word actually says, we'll deal with and love on people that we necessarily would not like to talk to. Not because I like them more, not because I approve or affirm what they've done or the lifestyle they live. But if Jesus came for sinners like me, guess what? He came to be the way for sinners like them. And so we oftentimes will take where we are in our walk of salvation, we'll take where where our church attendance is, where we come to Bible study, we come to prayer meeting, we tithe, we give offerings, we we shake the pastor's hand, we you know, do we uh we do all the right things, we wear the good cool clothes with nice shoes, and we do all the right things we're supposed to do in the modern church today, but if you don't have love in your heart, it's all for nothing. Because the love we show, now listen, some people I don't understand you gotta love from a distance. But what what's the thing is this like if you if you genuinely love them, if you genuinely forgive them, if you genuinely want to be Christ to them, you don't avoid them in Walmart. I know that's tough. Like, oh my goodness, oh my goodness. Where's the milk? I don't remember where the milk is, baby. We gotta go. All of a sudden you get a little frantic, and something you thought was resolved, all of a sudden you realize how much it wasn't. So we have to remember for people we like, this is it's easy when you like them. It gets complicated and uncomfortable when you don't. Verse 21, it says this. It continues on. It says, As was promised in the writing of Moses and the prophets long ago. Now, here's something beautiful. Paul is mentioning this because he wanted you to understand that this wasn't new. It was promised in the Old Testament. If you read, if you have the Bible app, um, it's a little brown one on your screen, it's a little app thing, you can actually go and read a specific uh Bible study that's talking about Jesus in the Old Testament. And it's pretty cool to go through and walk through and you're like, wow, I never realized that Jesus wasn't a new thing in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. He was actually already established in the beginning of time. Matter of fact, John affirms this when he says creation was made through the word. And so Jesus was promised, the salvation was promised, the Messiah was promised. This was not plan B. You understand this? If you understand how God sees time, you can understand that this was not, well, that didn't work out. Now we're gonna do this. It was the plan all along. He didn't look at humanity's failure and say, Well, that didn't work. Let me try something different. No, this was the plan all along. The entire Old Testament, even though he gave them something to help them make it through those times, the entire Old Testament points to prophecy of the Messiah coming.

Promised Messiah And One Way

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When you understand this, it makes me so thankful that I'm not a Jew. That I was I was not in that. I'm glad I was born the day I'm born in, that I don't have to do all the stuff they had to do in the Old Testament. Genesis 3.15. So let's just break this down or go through this just real quick. I don't have these on the screen, but you can write these down. Genesis 3.15, God promised a seed who would crush the serpent's head. Isaiah 53, 5. The prophet declared that the Messiah would be pierced for our rebellion and crushed for our sins. Psalm 22, David describes the crucifixion a thousand years before it ever happened. The prophets saw it from a distance, and now Paul says what they saw, we now get the privilege to experience firsthand. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And here it is, He is the way. There is no other way to the Father. Faith in Christ, faith in Christ, not faith in your good deeds, not faith in your church attendance, not faith in your family background, not faith in your religious rituals, and not even faith in the church of God denomination. Faith in Jesus is what brings salvation, but faith in Jesus. Jesus Himself said in John 14, 6, he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one, just as Paul said, everyone, anyone who calls on Jesus, Jesus is saying, No one can come to the Father except through me. Notice he didn't say, I am a way. Not one of many options, not a suggestion among alternatives. He is the one and he is the only way to God. He is the doorway that we must walk through to find salvation. And all the all the world that says all the roads lead to God, this is a very common thing now. They say all, oh, oh, it's the same God. It's the same God. Oh, well, we have Jesus in this, and it's it's the same thing. It is not the same thing. If it contradicts this holy word, it is not the same thing. Matter of fact, if it contradicts in any way, it is the opposite. It doesn't even run parallel, but it is perpendicular. It runs into it. It is a crash into truth that tries to manipulate what actual truth is and say, just like Jesus did when he tried to tempt Jesus, or just like Satan did when he tried to tempt Jesus, he mentioned some scripture and then wrapped his lie around it. That is what the devil is still doing today. The way has been revealed, and his name is Jesus.

Everyone Sins Grace Makes Right

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Point number two, the way is for everyone. Everyone. Romans, we're gonna start at 22 and 24. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are, for everyone has sinned and falls short of God's glorious standard. Yet, God in his grace freely makes us right in his sight. This starts off with, and this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who you are. In mine, it's it's in the middle. They put a period and they begin the next sentence with and that may disturb some of our grammar fanatics in the house. But everybody, say everyone. Everyone, every dummy that pulls in front of you out on 31. I'm never gonna let that go. I travel that road too much. That's where I get all my prayer in. Paul is emphasizing that the way to God is open to all people. This was radical in the first century. The Jews believed they had exclusive access to God. They had the law, they had the prophets, they had the temples, they had the covenants, they were the chosen people, which was true. But now it's Paul's Paul's mission is to get out from underneath the Jew that only Jews can receive, and now anybody else that just turns to Christ can receive him. And here comes Paul saying that magic word, everyone. You know how many people? There's no no wonder he died. You know how many people probably be upset that he's coming and saying things that don't make that's not right? It goes against every you ever have somebody hold on, let me let me turn around. You ever have somebody that challenges the way that you raise your kids? Oh, come on, Jesus, we're gonna need forgiveness in the house today. But in your mind, you you're doing it right, and you don't need nobody's constructive criticism. Because all you hear is the criticism. Something that probably, if you if you're like me, the way I was raised is also established in the way I upbring. And some of you don't want to admit it, but we are our parents, one way or another, whether a lot or whether a little, or maybe our parents shaped us into who we are now by watching what they did and not doing that, still their mark is left on you, one way or the other. And so when you attach yourself to the way you do things, and someone challenges that and says, not even challenges, but says, Well, you're a little off. Maybe you shouldn't spank your kids. I'm about to get a hold of you. I do not spoil the kids at my house because I do not spare that rod. Come on, Jesus. But you you have like all these ways, you know, and you have different kids. Like, there's times where Cora sometimes needs a whooping, she needs a little spat on the rear, and sometimes you just talk to her hard, and she's just like and she melts down and goes finds the other parent to get some comfort. She knows the system pretty well. So Paul is talking and writing this, where people who are raised a certain way, doing things a certain way, especially if you mess with somebody's religion, you tell them how to do their money, you tell them how to talk to their spouse, you tell them how to raise their kids, and you mess with how they do their God thing, you're probably gonna end up fighting. I mean, that's that's true. Those are the big things right there, which is funny because it's also the big things you fight in the marriage. We don't like these things that we do a certain way to be challenged because that's the way it's supposed to be done. And if it ain't done that way, it ain't rat. I'm not lying. So think about these religious leaders because Paul was one of them. He was right amongst them, and now he's flopped and he's going a different direction of what how they were all taught and raised. He went to schooling, and so imagine how you ever you ever been taught something, and then you learn later in life. Well, that's actually not the right way to do it, it'll jack your brain up. That's probably why Paul had to have the severe experience that he did to just like reset him real quick. So he's like, okay, what I'm doing is not right. I gotta, I gotta do something else. And so it's tough in that time to Paul to write these words, but he did it. Paul was not scared to mince words, to say what needed to be said. He he didn't he didn't say things just to tickle ears, he said what needed to be said. And so he says that everyone, no matter who they are, is called Jew, Gentile, male, female, rich, poor, educated, uneducated. The way is for everyone. This means no one is too far gone. I didn't get one amen on that. Wow, yeah, a bunch of heathens. Because we already started talking, and you got that person in your head sitting there, and you're like, I ain't saying amen to that. So let's go back to the text. Verse 23, it says, For everyone has sinned, say everyone, you're in that group, buddy. You are a part of that crowd. That's you. So when we deal with difficult people, why do we act like we have some sort of special privilege over them because we've accepted Christ? Our hearts should be broken for them. For everyone has sinned, we all fall short of God's glorious standard. And I don't know about you, but sometimes I do it daily. Because I have to kill my flesh daily. If not, it will make me subject to its ruling. Now, Paul brings everyone down to the same level. Everyone has sinned. Not some people, not most people, but everyone has done wrong. Your grandmother has sinned. I know that may be shocking. Oh, granted, she she sinned. She needs Jesus too. Your pastor has sinned, your favorite preacher online that you like better than me has sinned. The most religious person who always shows up, they give, they donate their time, their efforts, they they do all the things they're supposed to do, but they still have sinned. Because we all fall short. The Greek word for fall short is historonote, and it means to lack, to be behind, to miss the mark. We also see the same verbiage with sin. It says to miss the mark. You try, you aim, and you miss. But pitcher and archer aiming at the target. Now, God's standard is the bullseye, his perfect holiness, right in the middle. If you don't know, that's where you're supposed to hit it. That's what you're aiming for. Every single one of us takes our shot, and no matter how good we are, we still miss on our own. Some miss by a mile, some miss only by a few centimeters or inches. But we all miss. That's the point. A lot of times we do that comparative thing where we like to say, Well, I didn't do it that bad, or I don't talk like that, but we forget so quickly that we still miss the mark. We still miss. You can't say, Well, at least I'm not as bad as that person. That doesn't matter because all have missed, all have sinned, we all need a savior, we all need the

Salvation Free Not Cheap

SPEAKER_00 42:06

way. Look at verse 24. It says, Yet God in his grace freely makes us right in his sight. And I love this phrase because it says, Yet God. It's also almost like the beginning of the second part where it says, but now. And it says, Yet God, in his grace, it takes responsibility or ownership off of you having grace over yourself and being able to earn it. And it says, You can't do it, only in his grace can you become saved. After the bad news of our universal sinfulness, God comes with good news, and Paul says this God gives us undeserving grace. Grace is God giving us what we don't deserve. We deserve judgment. Every person deserves judgment, but he gave us his mercy. We deserve condemnation, but yet he gives us his justification. We deserve death, but yet he gives us life. And notice he freely makes us right. The Greek word is durian, and it means as a gift or without cause, meaning that there was no cause for him to freely give the gift, that he gives it before you ever ask. That means you're not trying to get things right before you come into church. You don't try to, you don't try to get things right before you come to God, because we cannot make it right until we come to Christ. Without cause. You cannot earn this, you cannot buy this, you cannot work hard enough to deserve his mercy and his grace. Salvation is free to you, but it was not cheap. You know, if I go out and I get a rental car because I need it, actually, you know. What let's back up. Let's let's do another scenario. I like this one better. Thank you, Lord. If I would have bought my teenager his truck and he paid for none of it, he would not understand the value of getting a ding in it. He would not understand the value of flat tires. He would not understand the value of something that he didn't pay for. So because he had skin in the game, and because he helped pay for half of it, he now treats that thing like it's his baby. He washes it, he he he's wiping down the inside. Matter of fact, some of my my armor all and stuff, my little rags have disappeared, and he's got it in the little thing on the side of his door just in case, just in case it gets dirty. Sometimes we forget the cost that was paid for Jesus bringing salvation to us. We forget that it cost him something. When we recognize the cost of something, we realize the value of it. We realize that it means something. And so I want to pause here for a second and I want to ask you this. As some believers who are saying, I don't know if everybody in here is but I I hope, but actually I hope not, because if if we don't have any unsafe people here, we're not doing our jobs. Woo! Come on, church, where are you at? But here's what I know when we get, I'll use my marriage as an example. It's there's a marriage, there's a uh a phrase when you get married and you've done it a few years, and the fights maybe get a little bigger and your frustrations get a little stronger, and the things that you once thought was cute now annoys you. Huh? It's possible. Love is blind, but you have something called a honeymoon phase. I'm still in my honeymoon. We're coming up on 11 years, boo-boo. But that has to be cultivated. And so what happens is we serve the Lord, we come to church for a while, we we do the church thing, we we do the God thing, you know. We may even start off strong. You know, we're getting back into church, we're gonna read the Bible, we're gonna we're gonna pray together as a family, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that. I'm gonna witness to people, and then about two, three, four, five years in, all of a sudden the honeymoon phase is over, and now there's people in the church that get on my nerves. The very people that shook my hand when I came here. Now I look the other way, I would avoid them in Walmart. This is human nature and very easy to fall into. This is why we have to make sure that, like we all through this entire thing, we realize that all of us are in need of a savior, all of us are in need of mercy and grace that the Lord gives us. We should be bestowing that on other people. Because if not, then there becomes division in the body and we become complacent, we become complainers. Nothing is ever good enough. I can't see anything good in anything in here because I can't see past myself. That's usually the issue, and that is fertile ground for the enemy to put his seed of dissension and deceit and disbelief and breaking up the body. So we have to be careful and realize. I told somebody this this morning too. They were talking about being upset with somebody, and I was in my heart, I'm like, yeah, I get that. But what we have to remember is this the devil, the enemy, he is not your friend, he is the enemy. He wants to get you tripped up in a public setting, he wants to get you hooting and hollering and punching and swinging and all this stuff so that somebody can see, well, I guess they weren't the Christian that, you know, and just as easily if they were in your shoes, they would have done exactly the same thing, but they weren't. And they were watching you. So we have to remember, when dealing especially with difficult people, to look past their issues and their hangups and their problems and their mistakes and their attitudes and realize that the enemy is trying to roam around like a lion whom he can devour. And so we have to remember that who we're talking with, who is trying to argue and spur us into bad conversations that can go downhill quick, it is the enemy who is trying to fight you with spiritual warfare to get you to trip up. And we real when we realize who the actual enemy is, it's not the person, but it is the presence of something in their life that needs to be extracted. Who else but a person who serves Christ can help that extraction take place in their life? The very people you may not like may be your assignment. Yeah, he's shouting on that one. That's okay. That's all right. What I'm saying is be sensitive to the Holy Spirit, be aware of what's going on around you, be aware and realize that broken people, hurt people, try to hurt people. But on the same side of that coin, healed people help heal people. How will they know healing if those that are healed don't want to mess with them? All they're gonna do is get around other broken people and become super broke. Misery loves company. But the Bible talks about the spirit that dwells within you, recognizes the same spirit that dwells within me. And so I said this actually, I think it was Wednesday night at the men's Bible study. If you don't have anything to do on Wednesday nights, uh please come to the men's Bible study. Uh, we do it every Wednesday, and we're talking about experiencing God and and we're we're diving in and we're getting real. And I, or maybe it was Tuesday night at prayer meeting. Also, we have Tuesday night prayer meeting at 7 p.m. Gotcha. Um and I was saying, listen, we we need to we need to not just fight the battle for ourselves, but remember that those who struggle in their faith, sometimes they don't know how to put on the armor of God, they don't know how to fight properly, they don't know what weapons are available to them, they don't know about the Holy Spirit, they don't know about you know signs and wonders and all these things. They just how they're gonna hear it if they don't know God? How they're gonna get how they're gonna get closer to God if the people that are next to them won't help drag them along because we are meant to, as believers, if we're unified in the body, to pay attention, not just fight for ourselves, but fight for those around us. To fight for those around us, to pay attention when someone stops skipping church, when they start skipping church and they stop stop coming to church. There's a reason. There's a reason, and usually it's spiritual. So if we're spiritually mature and we're trying to get closer to God, why would we not reach out and check on them spiritually? I hate to tell you this, but that's not my job. Come on. It is the job of the body to protect the body. Yes, I'm a part of that body, but what I'm saying is you may see things that sit people that sit next to you and see the vacancy in their eyes. Do you understand what I'm saying? You realize that something is off, maybe they're acting different, maybe they're quieter today. Get in their business and find out and ask some questions of what's going on. And if they lie to you, pray out that lying tongue. But when we when we show that we care about each other, it strengthens the fabric and we pay attention and we we stay fighting the fight not only for ourselves but for each other. I'm

Redemption Ransom And Final Call

SPEAKER_00 52:47

gonna skip around on these notes. Sorry, y'all. Continuing on verse 24, he said he did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty of our sin. Now, in Paul's day, the word was used to be free. This Greek word was actually redemption. Apollo, I'm not gonna even apologize, whatever that is. Excuseidocious, whatever. Dude. Okay, uh, let me, you know, y'all know I put myself on the chopping block. You know how many times I listen to these words being pronounced, and I still get them wrong? If you get it, teach me. Anyways, this Greek word you see on the screen behind me, you pronounce it in your head. The point is it means redemption. In Paul's day, this word was actually used in the slave market. If you wanted to free a slave, you would pay the ransom price and they would be released from bondage. That is exactly what Jesus did for us. He paid our ransom so that the sinful nature and the disgusting person that we are, that we need a savior, he paid that ransom so that we could be set free. That we would no longer be bound, that we would no longer be chained, we would no longer be held captive. Jesus entered the marketplace of humanity and he paid the ransom with his own blood. He paid it so that you would be redeemed, he paid it so you would be ransomed, he paid it so that you would understand that you have been purchased with a price, and that price was his life, it was his blood that poured out. That means that you have value. The value is his life that he laid down for you. There has been made a way, the only way, Jesus Christ. As we close, we walk through these few verses today. It was it was very long-winded, but short message. And there has been, the way has been revealed as we started off in this back half of this chapter. God didn't leave us guessing, He showed us the way to righteousness through Christ Jesus. The way is for everyone, no one is excluded, no one is too far gone. If you believe, the way has been opened up to you. Call upon the name of the Lord. And here's the bottom line: Jesus is the way, he is not a way. He is the way to God, he is the way to heaven, he is the way to freedom, he is the way to salvation. So let me ask you today have you come to the way? Have you given over the lordship? I think we lose the value of this word because we have presidents and things like that. But over in the United Kingdom, where they have kings and queens, there's there's lordship. It means something when there is a lord over your life. It means that you you were bought with the price. What does that mean? I don't belong to myself anymore. My desires, my wants, my ambitions, my way of thinking, my heart. The Bible clearly states all throughout scripture that God looks at the heart. Why? Because sometimes our heart and mouth don't meet, and we say things stupid, we act out stupid, but God sees the heart. So you can come to church as many times as you want. It does not mean you've accepted Jesus. You can serve in the church, you can do all the things, you can show up, you can even clean the toilets of the church. Come on, somebody. Out of the sacrifice of just wanting to serve, and these great things that salvation produces out of us does not make salvation be within us.